Now The Game Starts Again

I am sure that many readers of this blog are, like me, subscribers to Bloomberg Businessweek. For those who might not be, you might want to pick up a copy of the December 20, 2010 - January 2, 2011 Year in Review edition. Pretty interesting stuff presented in a very different and creative way.

It is filled with lots of data much of it leaving the reader wondering as many of us felt before confronted with contents - what will 2011 bring?

It seems that for every piece of "good news" there is a balancing piece of "bad news." For example, we are told that in 2010, "the U.S. added 937,000 jobs."

While not super, wow, terrific, at least it's a better number than losing a like amount. At least it feels that way until it is followed by the fact that

"...Foxconn, the Taiwan-based maker of nearly every consumer electronic product you wanted this year, added 300,000."  And sports fans, in case you missed it, one is a country the other a company!

And the opening piece goes on to say in part:

"Fueled by gold, copper and coal, the most robust currency of the year against the dollar was the Mongolian tugrik." "In India, competition for deals has become so intense that billionaire Ravi Ruia is branching out to Africa - buying coal mines in Mozambique and a Kenyan oil refinery. Competition is one of the pleasures of business and one of the foundations of America."

"That right hasn't been rescinded - it's been extended to people around the world. In a way, we've won. Now the game starts again."

As I read through the issue, my thoughts kept going back to the foregoing line which somehow struck me as very powerful and profound even though the thought was hardly new.

"That right hasn't been rescinded - it's been extended to people around the world. In a way, we've won.  Now the game starts again."

The term "globalization" has long since become part of our daily business lexicon, and if you listen to many of those described as "thought leaders" they all seem to applaud the changes and talk of the opportunities represented by the evolving global markets. For those who can innovate, the future looks very bright indeed.

Said a bit differently, Bloomberg Businessweek said it this way:"Capitalism lives off of change."

What it didn't say, but is clearly implicit in that truth is that those same "thought leaders" also point out that unless the U.S. can maintain its leadership position when it comes to innovation, which is what really drives "change," our role as the economic engine of the world will be lost. Indeed, it doesn't take a lot of research to find lots of folks who think that this has already happened, but we either haven't noticed it yet or are simply in denial.

It would seem that there is more doom and gloom on this subject than those who think the pessimists wrong. After all, it is the bad stuff that "sells" so finding an abundance of those who think "it's all over but the shouting" isn't surprising.

For sure only time will tell if as a country we are up to the challenge.

As for me, and maybe it's just the hopefulness, excitement and optimism of a new year, but no matter what the challenge, I would rather be in the USA than anywhere else in an effort to meet it.

Putting America Back to Work

Bill George is, as many already know, a professor of management at HBS and the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic. He also wrote the 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis. In short, he is one of those people who as the old E.F. Hutton commercial said "when Bill speaks, people listen." And well they should.

If you didn't see his piece in the past week's edition of BusinessWeek it is well worth the read. If you are short on time, the Cliff's Notes version is that he shared some ideas of what we should be doing as the country keeps moving toward rebuilding our economy and creating sustainable jobs.

Specifically, he argues that we should be focused on "innovation, entrepreneurship, small business and new company formation." which if you believe in history seems pretty hard to argue against.

To prime the pump he thinks that if tax credits for long-term investments were raised along with making the current tax credits for R&D permanent it would go a long way to creating jobs in the aforementioned areas.

Moreover, he points to renewable energy, information technology and healthcare as logical places to start which also may seem obvious to many but these too are hard to argue against.

When I had finished reading Bill's op ed piece and put BW down, I was reminded again of just how important innovation is and how it really is and has been the engine that drives job creation, and if we don't make a concerted effort to provide an environment that fosters innovation far more so than is currently the case, "Do you want fries with that?" could well become our epitath.

Global Trends Pressure Innovative Thinking

HSM is an organization which produces more than 60 events a year for senior executive leaders. Their events can and often are described as "must-attend" for CEOs and a gander at the agendas for their World Innovation Forum in May or the World Business Forum in October will quickly demonstrate what I mean.

One of their recent speakers was Andrew Zolli who is the founder of Z + Partners, a futures research and strategy consultancy, and curator of Pop!Tech, an annual conference devoted to thinking, science and technology.

If you are interested to discover how gifted this guy is, check out Global Trends Pressure Innovative Thinking.

With the economy in the shape it's in (if it even has a "shape" at this point, feels more like a blur at the moment)the insights of a thought leader such as Zolli make for very interesting reading.

If you are among those executives who currently find yourself "at liberty" as they used to say and are thinking of heading out on your own, you would do well to read Mr. Zolli's piece in its entirety. It won't take long, but there are some powerful "learnings" presented for those who are thinking they have an idea "whose time has come."

As a small business owner, and one who wanted to head out on my own some 20+ years ago when the notion of ExecuNet was playing out in my mind, Zolli's principles for building organizations that work came as a very impactful reminder in terms of the stars by which you want to guide your enterprise.

His belief is that such organizations must have missions that are "personal, tangible, present-focused and desirable." And he goes on to say:

The personal trumps the impersonal.
The tangible trumps the intangible.
The present trumps the past and future.
Desirability trumps responsibility.

Pretty good track to run on if you ask me.